September 2018

You only get one chance to make a first impression.
That’s one of those truisms that’s actually true – in church and in life.
One of the hallmarks of healthy churches is that they work hard at making a good first impression. Helping guests make the leap from ...

The smaller the group, the more likely there will be a higher percentage of members engaged in the goals of the team.
This is true for groups of all types, including churches.
In the last few years I’ve come to appreciate this principle in some very concrete ways. And it’s ...

So, you pastor a small, struggling church.
You’re trying to help it become less small and less struggling, but all the “can’t miss” answers from the latest church growth conferences never seem to work for you.
You don’t have a big worship team singing ...

No church is perfect.
Some churches make mistakes but keep growing and moving ahead at lightning speed, while other churches make similar mistakes, but can’t seem to make even the smallest forward progress.
Every pastor of every plateaued church experiences this. And every ...

Big churches and small churches design their budgets very differently.
While large churches spend their time balancing percentages, designing requisition sheets, and tracking an increase or decrease of giving as one measurement of the church’s health, small churches deal ...

One of the airtight principles of church leadership is that you can tell what a church’s priorities are by looking at where they allocate their funds.
That is true in some churches, but not in all. Maybe not in most.
Here’s why.
The vast majority of churches are small, ...

Are you an underliner? I am. Unless I’m reading for pleasure, it’s almost impossible for me to pick up a book unless I have something to underline or highlight it with.
When people read books, they tend to underline or highlight the sentences they agree with. Give ...

Not all change is good.
The church exists to worship the God who never changes, as seen in a book whose newest pages are 2,000 years old. That’s some serious long-term consistency.
But the way that permanent message is delivered always changes. Traditions that we think of ...

Finishing well in ministry really matters to me.
Especially since I now have more ministry years behind me than in front of me.
I want every day of my ministry life to matter. And I want to end it having brought honor to Christ, his church and my family.
This has become even more ...

What do pastors, politicians and major league coaches have in common? A whole lot of people who’ve never done their job are convinced they could do it better.
The less experience they have the more certain they are, because those who’ve actually done it know how hard ...
Read More from Karl
